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Tuesday, February 17, 2015

where blogging just doesn't appeal to me right now.
I have gone back and forth the last year or so wondering should I blog,
or shouldn't I.
Why do I even have a blog?
I have really enjoyed it in the past, but right now it feels like a chore.

So for now I am going to take some time off writing blog posts.
Probably a very long time.
I still hope to read blogs and keep up with everyone.
But just in case you can find me on Facebook and Instagram if you would like.
My Instagram account is private, but you can request an invite.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maryjo.rhoda
Instagram: http://instagram.com/maryjorhoda/

Since leaving the design team scene behind, I don't really feel the need to blog anymore since I have facebook and instagram. In fact, many blog posts are just a repeat of what I have posted there.
I am feeling the need for less of an online presence these days,and more privacy for my me and my family.
So less blogging it is.

Thanks for hanging with me here at The Scrapbook Treehouse for so long.
I am super grateful for all of the fun women I have met through my blog!
And I am thankful that many of us already follow each other on FB and Instagram.

I am not going to take my blog down just in case I do decide to come back in the future once I start regularly scrapbooking again.
I've learned never say never!

Friday, February 13, 2015

Let's just say that being sick for a whole week didn't make for the most fit week.
But a not so bad one either.
Quite a few sleepless nights in there.
But then a few nights where I was in bed super early.
Vitamins not taken.
But lots of medicines to soothe symptoms and the antibiotic of course.
Exercise didn't happen like I would have wanted.
But then again I felt like garbage. And I did manage to fit in a few weight and stretch workouts when I felt up to it.
I did drink more water than anything.
And had an Arby roast beef sandwich and Dr. Pepper the day I went to urgent care because I was starving afterwards and Arby's was right there.
But that was the only soda for the week.

So not too bad for being sick.
I will cut myself some slack. :)

And just for fun today, I was inspired by *This Post* by Jen over at her It's My Life blog.
What I am Loving right now.1. What I'm Wearing...

I got *These Boots* from Nordstrom recently. Super comfortable for such a high heel. Well, high for me that is. Thankfully, I had two gift cards saved up. I had been wanting a pair to go with some new pants I bought from Anthropologie (also with a gift card). I must be the queen of saving up gift cards!
Anyway, new boots for me.

2. What I'm Reading...

OK, technically, I have already finished reading this book, but I really want to talk about it.
I know, I know, everyone is talking about this book!
Mike bought it for me for Christmas upon my request, and lately I have to really want to read a book to buy it not just find it at the library. And I really wanted to read this book.
I find her so smart and funny. She is my age and I loved her stories from her younger years because I could relate to so many. Although, I guess I could relate to a lot of her stories she shared about being a mom as well. The design of this book is pretty fun with so many great photos and bits of old letters and other "scrapbook" type material. Very cool! I have to admit that I liked this book better than Tina Fey's who I also find hilarious. Anyway, it was a good read that was hard to put down and I really hated when it ended. She needs a sequel. :)

The actual books I am reading right now...

and

The first book was a little slow in the beginning and I almost gave up. But I hung in there and now it's starting to get interesting. I have pretty much read all the books in the JD Robb series by Nora Roberts and this one is a page turner for me. Reading as fast as I can to get to the end!

3. What I'm Watching...

Glee, could it be? Could you possibly have one me back for the last season. We will see. So far so good.
I have such a love/hate relationship with this show. And last season I completely hated it. There are so many poor messages in it at times. And so many bad things have happened to the characters that it seems enough already. So many poor story lines that just don't make sense.
But it almost seems as if they are finding their way back to what made this show fun to watch in the first place.
I hope so.

As for Sleepy Hollow, my must watch show of last season...

well I have to say it has almost lost me. It sounds like it went a bit off track this season for awhile there. So I am seriously behind in episodes. But from what I have been hearing through the grapevine, I might just want to start watching again.

In my to be watched queue on Netflix...The Walking Dead. I hear nothing but good things about it. But so far behind in that show, I would need a serious marathon weekend or something. Those just really don't happen.
Although I am rewatching Friends on Netflix, but those are only 22 or 23 minutes long. So I can knock one out while I eat lunch or fold laundry. :)

Anyway, I hope you have a great weekend!
And I will leave you with two fun Valentine ideas for kids to give to classmates that I found on Pinterest recently.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Just a quick post today.
I have been sick since last Wednesday.
Started off innocently enough I think as just a cold, but developed into a sinus infection.
By Sunday, my throat was so sore and the head pain so bad I went to an urgent care center.
Thankfully, antibiotics have helped a lot.
But Sunday night after Mike left, I pretty much lost my voice.
So Evan took over the nightly story time with Erin...

reading books on her bottom bunk.
I can't tell you how grateful I was!

And as sick as I was, I still managed to take Erin to dance class on Saturday afternoon (after I took a long nap in the morning) and shopping for a dress for the Father/Daughter dance that night.

We found the dress on sale at Nordstrom after having absolutely no luck at a variety of other mall stores. She picked it out herself along with the hair bow.
Unfortunately I did not get a good picture of Mike and Erin together. We were just too rushed. I am hoping the professional shot of the two of them at the actual dance is better.

Now that I am feeling better, hopefully I can get caught up. I am getting there.
And my project to do list is pretty long as always, but I feel like I am making progress!
Anyway, thanks for stopping by today!

Friday, February 6, 2015

Checking in!Exercise:
So I have been trying to exercise 4-6 times a week and have been successful with that goal. I am on pace for 4 times this week. But I was feeling pretty crummy on Wednesday night so didn't exercise Thursday like planned. Which is why I am going to hit 4 instead of five this week.Although I do daily push ups so that counts as a form of exercise right?

I also realized that to fit exercise in, I may not get a full 45-60 minute workout done.
Sometimes it's 20-30. And this past Tuesday morning it was a 12 minute ab workout.
In the past, I might have just said forget it. A workout that short is not worth it.
But now I know that some exercise is better than none!
For one, it keeps me on track. Once you start missing exercise days, it's easy to just let it slide.
Also, if I do a shorter workout, I try to make it a HIIT workout or strength training because those help boost the metabolism. Then you are burning more calories throughout the day!
So my exercise goal is going well.

Fast Food:
I have been avoiding it like crazy, but once a month I allow myself to have it if I feel like it.
On Wednesday I was running errands all day and decided to treat myself to Culver's for lunch and have my weekly Dr. Pepper.
Once again I realized that fast food really isn't much of a "treat" anymore. Ugh.
Except for my one Dr. Pepper a week, I am drinking mostly water.
I want to add some hot tea in the morning back into the mix as well. I really do like hot teas.
And I had a Pina Colada type smoothie on Wednesday at lunch with my tuna salad. They make the best smoothies at a local coffee shop here.

Vitamins:
Yikes! The first three days this week I totally forgot again. But I am getting back into remembering. I have to set the bottles on the counter first thing when I come down in the morning as a reminder.Sleep (my goal for this past week):
Success! The goal was to be in bed by 10:30 at the latest, lights out at 11pm for sure.
Plus, no screens after 10:30
Well, Monday night I was in bed by 9:45 and lights out at 10:15.
Tuesday night in bed by 10:00 and lights out by 10:30.
Wednesday night I was not feeling great, so I was in bed by 10:00 and lights out by 11:00. I did not sleep well overall that night because my throat hurt but at least I was in bed on time.
Thursday night more of the same as far as success.
I really want to keep this trend up on school nights!

Scrapbooking:

I discovered a seriously fun little craft store called Upcycle Exchangewhich is only a 5-7 minute drive from my house. In fact, I could probably walk there in about 20 minutes if I wanted. If you bring in items on their "wish list" you get a store credit. Scrapbook items are definitely on the list. Then it's a "pay as you wish" for items you want to purchase.

I ended up picking up a few things but still have a credit left over from the huge stack of patterned paper I brought in. I bought all that you see in the photo for $3.00. A real bargain considering I really wanted that Studio Calico stamp set and it is definitely worth a lot more than $3.00. The little "sorry" flair badge was sent to someone with a Studio Calico kit because there was a mess up in some product in their kit apparently, but I think it will be fun on a scrapbook page.
It was fun to look through the bins and come up with some treasures that were considered giveaways to someone else. :)

So now I just need to make some time to actually scrapbook. Truthfully, I could have the time, I just haven't been making it a priority. Other projects, errands and chores are getting in the way. Maybe this weekend.
Hope you have a great weekend!

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

email me your address, Julie, at mmrhoda@sbcglobal.net and I will get your package out to you! :)

As for the weekend, it was fun.

Date night = a movie and pizza afterwards.

We saw American Sniper which Mike has really, really been wanting to see.

I found it to be interesting if a little hard to watch at times.

Saturday was a little busy with dance for Erin and a birthday party for one of her school friends right after. I wish I could post photos but they all include the other children and I don't like to do that without permission.

Then on Saturday night we had a small but nice birthday party for Mike's mom.

No photos there either that I can post but I did get a few cute ones of Erin with her cousin and Mike's mom with his sister.

On Sunday we had mass and then Evan and Mike ran a few errands together while Erin and I hung out and scrapbooked together. :)

We spread out on the floor of her room though because my workspace still kind of looks like this...

I was able to unpack most of my things from the weekend crop I went to, but I found another bag. So Erin worked on her "family memory" album as she calls it, and I sorted and organized photos from our Washington DC trip summer of 2013. I am putting most of the photos in our summer pocket page album I think. I was going to do a separate travel album, but it seems almost redundant.

So it was a good weekend.

Now I know I no longer design for Paper Issues, but I still love visiting their site and participating in challenges when I can. They started a new "issue" yesterday called "The Perfect Pairing" and I thought I would link up a layout.

This is an older page and one I am quite positive I never shared on my blog. Look at how little they were six years ago. I am hoping to create a new page for this issue if I can.

And I am pretty much on a major spending freeze, but I just had to order the new Paper Issues Swag Bag

Friday, January 30, 2015

Still moving along here.
Exercising 4-6 times a week at least.
Only had one soda this week.
No fast food.
So I am meeting my current goals.
Time to kick it up a notch.

Sleep.
I am setting a goal this week to be in bed by 10:30 on school night and lights out at 11pm.
No screens allowed after 10:30 for sure and probably earlier.
It depends on texting time with Mike while he is out of town during the week.
We always text at bedtime.

Otherwise, it has been a pretty uneventful week.
And by that I mean nice and calm for the most part.
Was able to cross a lot of items off various to do lists, so that is a plus.

Tonight is date night and I am super excited about that!
And we are supposedly getting 2-4 inches of snow on Sunday which the kids are super excited about. :)

Now on to my giveaway...

My die cut storage is now officially organized and complete. But in the process, I put together a huge bag of die cuts that I have doubles of or know I won't use.

And it's not old stuff either. Some of it is definitely from newer collections like "Kiss, Kiss" by Crate Paper. There are a few chipboard and vellum pieces in there as well. Brands include Crate Paper, October Afternoon, Dear Lizzy, Amy Tangerine, Shimelle, and Making Memories.

If you are interested, just leave a comment below to let me know and I will pick a winner next Monday or Tuesday.
Have a great weekend!

Monday, January 26, 2015

I was going to post for Fitness Friday last week, but plans changed.
Evan was home sick for two days.
And then my dad's cousin passed away on Tuesday.
He was like a brother to my dad, so we always called him "uncle Jim" even though he was really our second cousin.
The funeral was on Thursday.
He was 68 years old and hadn't been doing well the past year.
So truthfully I wasn't shocked, but it was still extremely sad because 68 is so young.

I found some older photos from when he was younger, and posted this little collage on Facebook to share with some of my family.
He was truly a nice man with a great sense of humor and will be missed.

As far as my fitness goals, I am still focusing on staying away from fast food, exercising 4-6 times a week and taking my vitamins. I haven't decided on a goal for this week, so I think I will just continue on with these three goals and pick a new one on this upcoming Friday.

And remember in my One Little Word post when I mentioned that Evan had decided we should also pick one word a week for our family as a whole to focus on? (In addition to my word Peace)
This week our word is Understanding because he thinks it would be nice to try and listen and understand each other. He said sometimes he feels we don't always take the time to really listen and understand what a person is trying to say. I think it's a brilliant word for the week. And a good one to bring to mind when talking to each other. :)

Also, this past weekend was my annual Girlfriends Scrapbook Getaway.
I packed up and headed to a local hotel with my sister-in-law and a few other friends to scrapbook Friday through Sunday. It's hosted by a one of the women who owned our local scrapbook store and her friend.

I spent most of the weekend working on my Summer 2013 Pocket Page album and got quite a bit done. But still have more to go. I'm getting there! And I've promised myself that I will work on it a little everyday this week so I can hopefully finish and put it on the shelf soon. :)

My Healthy Living board is slowly collecting lots of ideas that I find inspiring as I try to take little steps to make this my healthiest year yet! I love this idea of adding frozen berries to my water bottle.

Homemade Cosmic Brownies from my Sweet Treats board. They are supposed to be an accurate stand in for those Little Debbie snack cake brownies which Erin loves. But as I am trying to move us away from processed foods the ingredient list on those brownies are just a little too long for my comfort. So this Pinterest recipe looked like a fun idea.Unfortunately they are "not just like the real thing" as promised, and a little more labor intensive then planned. I'm not saying they are terrible. They just do not taste like "cosmic brownies" at all, and have more of a dark chocolate taste to them according to Evan. Erin did not like the ganache on top, so I have a feeling these won't cut it for a lunch box treat this week. Which is a bummer because I didn't buy anything else as a back up.

I am always looking for good recipes.If you have any food boards on Pinterest, feel free to give me a link in the comments below.